Four days after the special committee of the Perry Ellis International Inc. board reaffirmed its support for George Feldenkreis’ offer to take the company private, Randa Accessories laid out why it believes shareholders should line up behind its offer, which is slightly higher: $ 28 a share, as compared with Feldenkreis’ $ 27.50 a share.
In a letter sent to the special committee this morning, Jeffrey Spiegel, Randa’s chief executive officer, wrote: “We were disappointed to read of your decision not to engage with us regarding our compelling proposal that would provide superior value to your shareholders than your existing merger agreement with George Feldenkreis (the insider transaction).”
Spiegel said the deal with Feldenkreis “expressly permits the special committee to engage in discussions to clarify the terms of any unsolicited proposal it receives and, further, to engage in negotiations with regards to such a proposal that is reasonably expected to lead to a superior proposal.”
Yet the committee has “not once directly contacted us or our representatives.” Instead, the committee’s decision has been delivered via press release, Randa said.
As a result, Randa said it would address what it said were inaccuracies in the committee’s statement last week. That included the committee’s questioning of its financing ability. Spiegel said

Gilbert wrote that the ceremony wasn’t “legally binding,” just a “private celebration of what we have long known to be true: We belong to each other.”

The ceremony’s timing had special significance; as Gilbert noted in the Facebook post, Elias ― a fellow writer and Gilbert’s long-time best friend ― has been battling pancreatic and liver cancer for the last few years:

“More difficult days are to come,” Gilbert wrote. “It doesn’t get easier from here. Rayya’s illness is grave. But our love is strong. We will walk together as far as we can go together. After that, it all gets turned over to God.”

Elias is a musician and the author of Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk From the Middle East to the Lower East Side.

In an equally moving Facebook post last September, Gilbert wrote that romance blossomed between the two women after Elias was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer this past spring.

She also revealed that the intensity of her relationship with Elias played a part in the end of her marriage last spring.

“Death — or the prospect of death — has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya,” Gilbert wrote.